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Member:
Christos

Posted on Saturday, Jun 3, 2006 - 4:35 am:

Last fall I was riding a horse with severely contracted heels. The sulcus was nothing but a slit and the cleft some 3-4cm deep, completely separating the bulbs. I do not think his heels were sheared, though pretty much looking like it they would not move independently. He was not lame, but he would react a bit if you tapped his frog hard with the handle of the hoofknife.
Serious thrush was developing in the deep sulcus, so I was looking for an easy way to disinfect it, dry it and keep dirt and manure out of it in one go.
I found some very soft rope, 9mm thick. They told me they use it in air-conditioning and heating systems. It feels like a cotton wick of some kind.
I was cutting 5cm lengths, lay it on the sulcus, then force it all the way in with the hoof pick in a way that both ends stuck out 5mm, behind and under the hoof.
It worked well, staying in for a few days. Every other day or so I was dripping some formaldehyde in to soak the piece of rope.
In two weeks the sides of the deep sulcus were clean, dry and hard, and they started opening so that they wouldn't hold the rope so well anymore.
I thought this was shrinking of the frog due to dehydration. The frog became so hard that it developed some cracks, the deepest one running in the bottom of the deep sulcus, right between the bulbs. It looked like a rock breaking in two. However, it wasn't painful in probing with a toothpick, so I wasn't worried much. The sulcus was dry and open enough to clean it easily, I pared it a bit more open with a hoof knife so that it will clean itself better and I was very satisfied with the result.
The surprise came when the heels continued to expand after this, amazingly fast! They opened steadily and the bottom of the deep sulcus started coming up. It was expanding so fast that we had to reset the shoes every 15-20 days.
Three hooves were almost back to normal width within three-four months, one front hoof taking a couple of months more for no apparent reason.
It seems that drying and hardening the sides of the deep sulcus and helping them apart with the soft rope gives them the initial kick to start spreading again.
The farrier that was shoeing him the last five years said this horse's frogs were always like this.
The horse was shod in normal shoes all the time. Perhaps barefoot would work even better, but he needed road nails for asphalt and ice.

I hope this info is of some help next time somebody deals with contracted heels.
Member:
Dres

Posted on Saturday, Jun 3, 2006 - 9:26 am:

Christos, I have to do this every winter on a mare of mine.. only i use a cotton pad found in many womens makeup bags.. and stuff it into the deep clef and i soak it with just small % of iodine..

On the first day God created horses, on the second day he painted them with spots..
Member:
Hwood

Posted on Saturday, Jun 3, 2006 - 10:43 am:

Interesting that you should bring this up, Christos. I was talking to a natural trim/barefott trim person yesterday, and she was telling me about a horse she worked on for 5 months before she found a similar problem with thrush. He had severely contracted heels. When she pulled the shoes and pads (the owners had been under the impression for years that the horse had navicular synDrOme) the frog was solid black and shiny, like a stone. I don't remember what she said about whether or not the contracted heels started correcting, but she said that one day, the solid frog DrOpped off, and there was a tiny, deep center of thrush that had been hiding under there for years. As soon as the thrust cleaned up, the horse went sound.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Jun 3, 2006 - 10:44 am:

Wow quite a story in light of the preexisting time and that there was no dramatic change in trimming and shoeing. I will try this on my gelding a older Walking Horse gelding. However he has been this way since I got him 14 years ago out of a show barn where he had been padded up. His feet have resisted many different and sometimes arcane attempts to expand those heels.
DrO
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